An email loop may occur when outbound email from any email, chat, forum, meeting room, or other type of notification service is automatically replied to by a recipient or by a notification service. The loop occurs when a user has an auto-reply and the service continues to notify others about the auto-reply or when two users have an auto-reply and continue to reply to each other automatically. The auto-reply is handled by the system and results in additional outbound email, which is automatically replied to again, and so on.
The potential for loops is created when any event occurs that results in the system sending outbound email. Examples of events include a user posting to Chatter™ (a messaging service of salesforce.com, inc.), an entity record being updated which has people following it, a customer initiating a support case via Email to Case (a service of salesforce.com, inc.), and the like.
As described herein, a loop is a series of replies from one or more recipients, however, the invention is not so limited. Loops may be recognized by identifying an inbound email as a reply to an outbound email, and further, to recognize the relatedness of a series of replies over time.
Loops may occur naturally as part of the normal back and forth interaction between the system and human recipients, for example, when a customer repeatedly replies to automated Email to Case notifications with additional information. Loops may also occur unintentionally, such as when an Out of Office (OOF) rule triggers automatic replies to anything and everything. Identifying automated loops versus “manual” or natural loops introduces a temporal aspect to identification. The temporal aspect may be a certain number of replies within a specific time period, a consistent time-to-respond over a period of time, a consistent response percentage over a period of time, etc.